“First the word ‘Yoga’ .”

First the word ‘Yoga’ . Let us analyze the word ‘Yoga’. In Sanskrit the word literally means – to unite or to become one with. Again and again all the Eastern mystics, they declare ‘you are energy’. The body is not just a bio mechanism as we think. Body is the expression of energy. In the Eastern system we call it annamaya kosha, means – the sheath covering the energy. It is not just bio mechanism as we think. It is the expression of energy. It is the outer shell of energy. Again and again mystics declare body is the expression of energy, you are energy, you are atman. Whatever word you may use, you are something more than what you think you are. You are something more than what you think you are. Having direct experience with that energy or uniting yourself, having a direct communion with that energy is what we call Yoga. Of course meditation is a technique to achieve Yoga.

The word Yoga should be understood much deeply. It is not just something to do with body. It is something to do with body also. But is not just something to do with body. Moving the body and doing some asanas helps, but it is not the end. Meditation is the technique to reach the state of Yoga. Yoga is the state which can be achieved through meditation. Of course, the word meditation and medicine both comes from the same root. Both are healing powers. Medicine heals the body, meditation heals your Being. Both are healing powers. Even the next word healing; the healing also, healing and the word ‘whole’ both are same root. When I use the word healing, I mean – being complete, achieving your wholeness, reaching the complete fulfillment, what mystics declare as realization, self-realization. Of course, too big word, but it is much easier than we think. Somehow traditionally we are made to believe it is too difficult, but it is not. We will analyze about it little later.

Now we will touch the first – Body part. I want to make few statements, few concepts; then we will analyze it with questions. First thing, by nature your body is intelligence. It’s not just bio mechanism as we think. It is not just force. It is force with intelligence which can respond to every single thought of your mind. It can respond to every single thought. It is created, maintained and destroyed according to your thoughts. You are the Brahma – creator, you are the Vishnu – sustainer, you are the Rudra - destroyer of your body. It is your thoughts which creates your body, sustains and destroys.

Second thing: reaching, achieving the zone of Intelligence or the space of Consciousness which is inside your Being, is the goal why you have taken the body. Body is alive, body is functioning just to reach the space in which you can experience the deep restful awareness, you can experience deep peace, you can experience the bliss. By this statement, I mean, the very reason for your existence is to achieve the Ultimate experience of your Consciousness, to achieve the ultimate bliss.

Next thing, it is not so difficult as we think. First this two are goal. Next I am speaking about the path. It is not difficult as we think. Next, what are the hurdles? Why we are not able to experience? If we say it is not difficult, why we are not able to experience it? Where we are missing? Yes. A small thing which we need to understand. Usually no Master, no spiritual Master will agree with another Master with any concept. If it comes to history, how the historians will accept or agree something in common. When it comes to medicine, almost everybody agrees something in common. If it comes to any other department, mathematics, the top level people, they agree, something. When it comes to spirituality, you can’t see two rishis accepting any one concept. There is a beautiful statement: If two rishis accept one concept be very clear someone is fake; someone is fake.

In spirituality, each one has got their own theory, their own expression, their own experience; but when it comes to this one concept – ‘by nature we are intelligence’, ‘by nature we are bliss’, almost all the Masters, not only Hindu mystics, the mystics or Masters belonging to all the religions, all the cult, all the group, all the sect, they agree this one concept. Then it must be the basic concept, the basic truth. It must be something important. Then why we are missing it again and again? Why, how we are missing it?

We will analyze few things which we are doing to stop experience the ananda spurana or the bliss happening in our being. First thing we accumulate too much of negative emotions, toxins, in our system. Our body is not just material as we think. It can hold energy, it can hold thoughts, it can hold memories. In Tantra, beautifully they say – you can’t think, you can’t continue any thought unless you remember your form. Because in your form you have a complete memory. All the memories are recorded in your form. If you can’t remember your form, you can’t proceed in thinking. You can’t have even a single thought without remembering your form; because in your form you have all the memories. Your body is not just dead bio mechanism as we think. In that you store memories. You store your emotions; whether it is positive or negative we store emotions in our system. When you store negative emotions, you accumulate too much of toxins, unnecessary negative energy inside your being.

That’s a first, first reason why we are not able to experience the deep blissful awareness or the restful awareness, why we are not able to be alive like kids. You can see the kids how alive they are; how bubbling. People ask me, “Swamiji how to bring up the kids?” I tell them, “You relax; they will grow automatically.” Actually we don’t bring them up, we bring them down. All your so called bringing up only brings them down. All, all your so called bringing up is nothing but bringing them down from their blissful awareness or restful deep ecstasy. Again and again we infuse the negative emotions, negative energy, inside our Being, inside our body and we stop experiencing the ecstasy. If you look deeply into your Being, if you don’t have anything to worry you feel like you are losing your boundary. If you don’t have anything to bother you feel you are losing your identity. Actually, your identity is defined only based on your worries. If you don’t create more and more trouble for yourself and others you feel your identity is lost. Actually you enter into a boundary-less consciousness. You will have your boundary as long as you create trouble for yourself and others. If you stop that one activity, immediately you lose your boundary. You start experiencing the boundary-less awareness, the timeless awareness. That is the first thing.

Next thing – the idea of ‘I am not enough unto myself’; whether it is physical beauty or mental stability or Being level energy. First we will touch the physical beauty. Again and again you are made to believe by the society that you are not beautiful, you are not enough unto yourself. The moment you start believing you are not enough unto yourself, you are not beautiful, you start running behind the cosmetics. I think it is a business. Only when you are made to believe that you are not beautiful you start searching for all the extra things. First let us analyze where is the scale of beauty? There is no scale.

If God is an engineer he would have done mass production - Miss world or Mr. world, have that mold, do just mass production! But God is not an engineer, he is a painter, he is an artist. He paints every one of us, he carves every one of us. That is the reason each one of us are so unique. Be very clear we are not equal, we are unique. The idea everyone is equal is totally wrong. Everyone is unique, everyone is unique. We are unique and not only that, we are enough unto ourself. If you look little deeply into yourself, you can see, we never feel relaxed, we never feel comfortable with our own body.

When you have the idea somebody is beautiful, you want to look like that person, you want to look like him, you want to look like somebody, you already created a gap between you and your body. You already started feeling uneasiness. That uneasiness between you and your body is the root for dis-ease. Male feeling attracted towards the female or female feeling attracted towards the male is natural. But when a male has got a poster of a male model and wants just to look like him, or a female has got poster of a female model and she just wants to do make up or she just wants to look like her, there is something seriously wrong in your Being. God is not engineer. If he is an engineer he would have created everybody in the same mold. He would have done mass production. But he is an artist. Each one of us are enough unto ourself.

If you can relax into this one idea, you will feel a tremendous, homely feeling inside your own body. If you look deeply into your Being this is the main problem. This is one of the root cause - Why we create distance between our self and the body. We may think, superficially we may think it is a very simple problem, but if you look little deep, I think this a root, this is a problem. We start rejecting our body unconsciously. We don’t live inside our body.

Look your life. Early morning when we get up and start brushing the teeth, we are already in the office. When we are in the office sitting and seeing the patients, already we are in the beach. When we are in the beach sitting and seeing the waves, already we are in the house, started thinking about the house. One thing is sure you are not where you are. That has become our lifestyle. We are not where we are. If your body is here, we can be sure you are everywhere except here. If your body is here you can be anywhere else except here. We don’t feel comfortable, we don’t feel relaxed, we don’t feel homely with our body just because we don’t love our body as it is.

We have an idea, we have particular standard measurements; the so called Miss universe or Mr. Universe. We have some particular measurements. Again and again we wanted to look like somebody, we wanted to be seen like somebody. We don’t understand, when we create a model, we just abuse our body. You disrespect your body. Apart from using chemicals from outside to decorate your body, that is different, even the very thought, the very idea creates a gap. I call this thought as a wedge between you and your body.

In Bharat to break big wood pieces, once they break, they insert a wedge so that the wood will not again unite or something. This thought that you are not enough unto yourself, you are not beautiful, is the wedge inserted into your being. If we can remove this one thought, of course, today we will do a meditation technique to relax into our body, to enter into our own home.

There is a beautiful book in Advaita Vedanta, they call it Swarajya Siddhi – means, reclaiming your own kingdom and achieving your own kingdom. The first part or the first thing which you need to achieve is your body, your own body; but you are not living inside. The body is there, you are there somewhere else. We were almost living like a ghost. We are almost living like a ghost. Your body is here but you are somewhere else. First thing we need to do, enter into your body. Enter into your body and start living inside. Try to be inside your boundary continuously. All our pain, all our disease, is nothing but your body asking your attention, your body asking your presence, your body asking your energy. If we can give enough attention to our body, naturally there will be no problem. You know, if you don’t give attention, enough attention in the home, what all the problems will be created.

The same way the body is your home. Give enough attention. That is enough; all the problems will be solved. Only when we don’t give enough attention to our body, when we don’t give our presence to our body, we create all troubles. People ask me, “Swami to do meditation, Master’s presence is necessary?” I tell them, “No, at least to do the meditation techniques which I am spreading my Presence is not necessary, your presence is enough. Let your body have your presence.” That’s the first thing which we need to understand.

Through this meditation technique which we are going to do, first we will remove the toxins, unnecessary toxins which we have accumulated inside our system. Through a particular breathing cycle, the technique is originally from Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, ancient scripture attributed to Shiva. First we will do the particular breathing exercise and remove the unnecessary toxins in our system. Then next we will awaken the energy which is inside our being. We call it Kundalini Shakti or potential energy. It is actually three steps. The first step we will be removing all the toxins from our body. The next step we will be awakening the higher energy which is in our system, which is inside our body. Third we will completely rest, relax, feel at home with our body. We will reclaim our body, we will start living inside our system. Instead of living like a ghost; your body is here, you are somewhere else, means you are living like a ghost. Instead of living like a ghost we will start living inside our system, inside our boundary, inside our body with full awareness.

These are the few ideas which I wanted to present to you. We will now internalize these ideas with your questions. One thing, if I just continue to speak, usually we don’t believe others; that is the truth. To tell you honestly, we never believe others. I tell you, all lectures, all dialogues, all discourses, are just waste; may not be 100% but 99.9%; that’s all. When the other person is speaking, you just keep quiet so that you will be allowed to speak. Usually we never listen, we never allow any words to penetrate our Being. Unless we question, unless we understand, unless we directly involve our self into the program, we don’t internalize any ideas. Either we sit, we keep quiet out of courtesy or we don’t want to open our mouth; we feel too lazy, “Why to ask question unnecessarily. Let’s relax.”!! This is the usual thing which happens. Now let’s internalize these ideas through our questions. You are welcome to ask anything related to this statements or the concepts which I expressed.

Question: Swamiji how do we pay attention to our body …………...

Swamiji: Today we are going to do a meditation technique; that’s the first thing. Next thing whenever you do anything related to your body – brushing the teeth, taking bath, eating, whenever you do anything directly related to your body, just be inside your boundary. You can see, only when you brush your teeth you will have all ideas about your business; you will be thinking everything about your patients, about your business, about your life, everything. Whenever you do something directly to do with your body, be inside the boundary, decide that; that is more than enough, nothing else is necessary. That is more than enough.

At least 2 to 3 hours you spend with your body every day; brushing the teeth, cleaning yourself, taking bath, eating, dressing, all these things. In those moments decide ‘I will be with my body, I will be inside my body.’ Especially when you take bath, just relax with your body. We never look our body. If you see your routine, you can see very clearly, you never look your body. You only wanted others to look your body. You never look your body. No really. You never penetrate your body, you never deeply look your body. You never deeply relax into your body.

You try, you think, you do all possible things to look beautiful according to the standard of the society, but you never relax into your body. I tell you the moment you relax into your body, the moment you accept yourself, something called GRACE happens to you. It is not beauty, it is grace. Beauty comes by painting or doing all the makeup. Grace comes by accepting yourself. When you accept yourself, when you relax into yourself, something called grace happens to you. Apart from the meditation technique which we do today, you can take this one thing, this one statement you can take as a message which you can carry in your life to your home. Decide, ‘whenever I work with my body, I will be inside my boundary.’ Whenever you work with your body just be inside the boundary.

When I say just be inside the boundary, just feel what is happening inside your body. Stop thinking anything else except your body; just see what is happening inside your body. When you pour water, when you take shower, just see what is happening inside your body, how your body is responding. When you brush, just feel how your mouth is feeling. When you are dressing, just feel how your body is feeling.

Understand, your body responds to every single thought of your mind, every single thought of your mind. You can just restructure your whole body with your mind. That’s why in the East we have a beautiful philosophy called samudrika lakshana. The whole theory in your mind can be studied; the person who has mastered this art can tell everything about your mind just seeing your body; because your body is the expression of your mind. Your body is just created by your mind. So whenever you are working with your body decide – ‘I will be with my body, I will not think of anything else, I will not do anything else.’ After all when you are working with your body you can’t do anything else. Am I right? Surely you can’t see your patients when you are taking bath!! Surely…. Not a good idea ☺ at least for patient ☺ I don’t know about yourself…. for patient☺

Quetsion: Swamiji we go to the temples and ……………….… and we pray and prayer is one way of attaining the awareness or the bliss. What’s the difference between the prayer and meditation?

Swamiji: Beautiful question. What is the difference between prayer and meditation?

When you pray, you pray to God, when you meditate, you become God. When you pray, you pray to God, when you meditate, you become God. That’s all you become the energy to whom you are praying or to which you are praying, towards which your prayer is directed. Of course prayer is a beautiful step. It is a good start but not to end there. You can start with prayer but don’t end there. It’s like a first class first or the second grade. See, it is good to start but not to end there. You can directly work with the energy and see the result. And moreover prayer needs belief, faith and all these things which is outdated.

To tell you honestly, how much you try, always one part of your Being is ready to raise doubts. It is just waiting. See, if God does, as long as God does your home work properly he can sit in the throne of God. The moment he misses some job which you have given him, through your prayers, immediately he will be dethroned. He will be questioned, he will be dethroned, he has to lose his place, he has to lose his post. So, I feel, better build your life on meditation in which you don’t have to believe anybody, you don’t have to have faith on anybody. And especially the words belief, faith, all these words are outdated. In the modern day you can use only the words like ‘look’ ‘see’ ‘experience’. We can’t use the words ‘believe’ ‘have faith’ ‘trust’ and all those words are lost their meaning. They are no more, this generation can’t even relate with those words. Even if they are able to relate, they will be able to relate with these words only out of fear and greed; not out of understanding and love. Even our so called prayers, you can see, it is out of fear and greed which is not going to last long. The fear will disappear when you feel secure. The greed will disappear when your things are fulfilled or it will be just going form this extreme to that extreme. So better to drop this initial level ideas. Better you build your life on understanding based on meditation. It will be solid base, it will be solid base. Of course it takes little time and little more intelligence, little more patience to understand these concepts to analyze them and to internalize them, then start expressing. It is a little big process. But better to go for this than prayer. Prayer is like a, it will give immediate effect; but only for few days. You know what all gives immediate effect, how long it will stay and what are the side effects of those things; you know.

Question: ……………….. Second question is, is there a right time to meditate

Yes, I will answer these two questions and his question also…yes please…

Question: Every individual passes through a stage of loving his own body which is known as ………..… after that stage the love for body does not remain. What is the reason?

Swamiji: First thing and please be seated. This is a beautiful question.

Shiv do you have mike? Can you give the mike so that everyone will be able to hear the question? All of you are able to hear the question?

Question [is repeated]: Every individual man or woman passes through a stage of development at a particular stage and every individual loves his or her own body that is called ……….... after that period or stage of development man or woman that love for body does not remain? What is the reason?

Swamiji: Society doesn’t allow you. You can see a child it will put the finger into the mouth. It will catch the thumb and put it into the mouth and play. And you see kids whirling, spinning or you can see kids eating with both hands, playing with their genitals, playing with their whole body. Through all this way they express their love for their body, they express their feeling homely with their body, they express they are very happy with their body. But we don’t allow them. Do you allow when the kids spin around? Do you allow when the kids eat with their left hand? We suppress them. We suppress their joy. Actually one more thing, when a person feels happy with his body, when a person loves his body he will be in ecstasy. He will be continuously smiling for no reason. He will be just bubbling. He will feel like dancing. You can see kids.

There is a beautiful definition of health in Ayurveda. They say health means it is not just no diseaseness. No diseaseness or clinically all right is only one part of health. It is not health. Health means feeling like dancing. The early morning when you come out of your bed your steps from bed to the bathroom if it is more like a dance than like walking, then you are healthy. That is the definition they say for health in Ayurveda. You can see kids just continuously alive. If they laugh their whole body will laugh. Their whole body will smile. When we laugh we see the next person. We see the next person and decide how much we can open our mouth. Really you see the next person and decide. First we take the permission or we see what we can do. We wait and see. When kids laugh you can see their whole body will laugh. Their whole body will participate. In every activity their whole body will participate. When somebody is feeling relaxed with his body he will be so alive, so ecstatic, so joyful, society cannot tolerate it. You can’t tolerate when somebody is happy. If somebody is sad things are okay. See, if somebody is sitting silently, sitting very deeply depressed, you feel he is ok, he is as he is. If somebody is just laughing, just bubbling, just singing or dancing or expressing himself, it’s very difficult. We feel little uneasy. Especially when kids express themselves we feel little uneasy. The so called social ‘bringing up’, the so called ‘bringing up’ disturbs and we start feeling disturbed. Naturally we will stop living inside our body.

One more thing when we take up the responsibilities, when we take too much of responsibilities which we can’t handle or when we don’t create enough energy to take the responsibility, we just take the responsibility without creating enough energy then we move away from the body. We stop living inside our body. Two things: first thing take care of your kids that they don’t lose this connection. Allow them to live with their body. Allow them to be happy with their body. When they take bath, if they jump in the water allow them. If they just spin, put a mattress; even if they fall they will not hurt themselves. Never stop them. Or if they eat with both the hands, just keep the left hand also clean, that’s all. Why should we stop them? Allow them to use left and right equally. We don’t have to suppress half of the body.

And there are few more things which we can do. Try to avoid separating the upper body and lower body through tight cloths. When we put tight clothes we separate the upper body energy and lower body energy. We can use these few things to help our kids. And in our own life, as I told, try to live inside your body continuously whenever you work with your body. That’s more than enough. it is just the social bringing up is the reason why we lose that………..…what we say that love for our body.

And we are taught one more idea you should not stand in front of mirror and enjoy your body. That is considered as ego or some kind of disease. Be very clear; only thing, you should not think that you should look like somebody. Only that is the disease. You enjoying you as you are is perfectly all right. You enjoying yourself as you are can never be ego. It is perfectly all right. You can be with yourself. You don’t have to take somebody’s permission to be with yourself.

Yes your question I have not answered your question.

Question: ………many people have their mind wanders just when they are getting ready to sleep. When their mind should be at ease or at peace with themselves. ………. Is there a good time to meditate or what are the other good times when you should meditate?

Swamiji: You see the good time to meditate is when you get up from sleep and when you go to sleep. This two are the good time to mediate. But use very passive techniques in meditation. Two three techniques are there. Active techniques and passive techniques. In active techniques your body also needs to be involved. In passive techniques you don’t need to involve your body. You can just do some visualizations. So use that type of techniques in which you don’t need your body to be involved. You can just rest within yourself. Use that type of meditation techniques before you fall asleep.

Question: Swamiji tell us about your enlightenment. When did it occur? What changes happened? Educate us something about yourself.

Swamiji: This ……personal…☺ can I speak about this…surely I will answer this question but day after tomorrow. Let’s have little more time with each other. You understand? If somebody, you see you meet somebody, in the first meeting itself he starts asking about your personal life, its too intimate, you understand?

Questioner: 43:27……….you called us here….

Swamiji: I understand, surely I will answer this question…day after tomorrow? So let’s have little more time. You see, one thing, if I answer now I will give a social answer. If I answer day after tomorrow I will give a honest intimate answer; which you want?

See if I have to give an honest intimate answer we need little more intimacy. If I have to give a social answer I can give. I was in Omkareshwar, I can say the place, I can say the time, I can say some few words what has happened. Neither you will understand nor I will feel satisfied that I have shared. So if we can have little more time with each other, I think I will be able to open up to that much.

Question: Swamiji I have a question ………..…..

Swamiji: Yes you can use the word mindfulness, being here and now, meditating or creating awareness. All these words you can use. All these words are one and the same; it is just one and the same. I can say being inside your system is a technique or method to achieve that awareness.

Surely I will answer your question day after tomorrow. Give me little time.

Question: ………

Yes. One thing there are two levels of japa. Repeating the word unconsciously; just you start repeating for the sake of repetition. Some guru has inspired you, somebody has told you, so you started repeating. At some moment you had ecstasy so you started repeating. You are continuously repeating; repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, without awareness. This becomes unconscious process and it is very dangerous; not only it doesn’t help you, it is very dangerous. You have two part of thinking: one is verbalization another one is visualization. Both should be engaged in japa. Only then it will help you. If one only verbalization is engaged and visualization is thinking of something else, then not only it will not help you, it is dangerous. There is every chance you will become schizophrenia. You will become split personality. So be very clear, the japa, when you do the repetitions of mantra, your verbalization part and visualization part both should be engaged. If you repeat the mantra either you should contemplate on the meaning of the mantra or the deity of the mantra or the letter of that mantra. At least two process should be done by you continuously. So, if you don’t do the other process also which is related to mantra, you will start doing something else. I have seen many people repeating the mantra namah shivaya, namah shivaya, namah shivaya, ehh what happened to the brinjal, what happened to the phone call, what happened to this☺ namah shivaya, namah shivaya, namah shivaya. So this will make you as a split personality. Not only it will not help you, it is dangerous. So when you repeat, be conscious of the word which you are repeating and be aware of the meaning of the word or be aware of the person or the deity on which you are meditating through this word. Let your visualization and verbalization both be engaged in the japa.

Question: …………..

Swamiji: Now I have to honestly say few things. First thing, praying to a deity or praying to a idol or praying to a God is the initial level step. It is good thing to start but being inside your own Being or entering into your Consciousness is the real thing, which needs to be achieved and even all these deities are nothing but the expression of enlightenment; nothing but the expression of higher experience. You see, for example, when somebody has achieved a enlightenment experience or the higher consciousness experience

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